WISDOM IS a goddess? There are some who would draw that conclusion after reading Proverbs 8. However, in Hebrew, the word “wisdom” is grammatically feminine although there is nothing physical about the term.

We discuss the idea that Wisdom was a member of Yahweh’s divine council, a lesser elohim serving His purposes, although it is just as likely that the author of Proverbs 8 was using personification, a literary device that depicts an idea as a person — e.g., “Sin is crouching at the door” (Gen. 4:7) or “Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death” (James 1:15).

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